During the Season of Advent, we have been invited to wait patiently and to long lovingly God’s coming. The season was to prepare our hearts and minds to consciously welcome the Lord and celebrate fully the day of his birth.
In today’s Gospel, we were told about Prophetess Anna who had been waiting and longing for the birth of the Messiah. This old and wise woman, Anna never waivered and never stopped waiting and longing for God’s coming. In those many years of waiting, she must have endured many boring, tiring and heartbreaking days of waiting. Yet, Anna persisted to be in the Temple day after day, to pray, to fast and to at last behold the face of God. Her patience and her persistence indeed bore fruit because God granted her longing.
Anna at last saw the face of God. She must have been filled with so much joy. When that day came, it was not difficult for her to recognize Jesus, because her heart always longed for him. Her instinct and her heart guided her towards God.
She reminds me of the presence our senior citizens who are mostly our regular church goers. They are mostly the first ones to arrive and those who sit near the altar. At the beginning of this lockdown due to Covid-19, Senior Citizens were strongly discouraged to come to Church. Others even imposed strict prohibition to them. Being a Parish Administrator in my previous assignment, I also imposed such measure in my parish as a response to the health protocols imposed by the City.
However, this has become a great longing in the hearts of many senior citizens whose only desire is to be in the Church and celebrate the Eucharist. This was something also that I did not understand at that time – of that longing to meet the Lord, to receive God, to embrace the Lord and to be embraced by Him in our sacraments.
Prophetess Anna reminds us to always long for God because this makes our day filled with hope and filled with joy. To long for God is characterized by our prayer which Anna also showed us by not leaving the Temple. Anna dedicated her life after being widowed in prayer and in fasting. This was her own way of serving God. This prayerful attitude of Anna made her to become a powerful witness of God’s action in the lives of many. By being conscious of God in her life, Anna also saw how Go worked in the lives of those people she encountered in the Temple
This was how Anna recognized the Lord. In her awareness of God’s presence in Jesus, Anna teaches us now of two important lessons from the Gospel.
First, to always long for God. Our longing for God, grants us discernment and wisdom. To discern is to be able to feel God’s presence, thus, guiding us to know God’s desire. Wisdom will allow us to recognize the Spirit of God hovering over us, leading us to where God wants us to be. By being able to know and feel the Spirit of God allows us to celebrate Christmas every day.
Second, pray for others and pray with others. This will help us become more aware of God’s wonderful actions in our life and in the lives of those who are around us. This awareness helps us to respond to God rather than to react. A response is a conscious action towards God and others characterized by our willingness and generosity. A reaction is rather an unconscious action that would come sometimes from our strong negative emotions. By making our generous response to God and to those who are in need, this allows us to encounter and meet the Lord.
May these invitations lead us to God and lead us to that awareness that God has come and visited us. Like Anna, let us also preach to others what we have seen and experienced in God. Hinaut pa.
God looking for a refuge? Can you imagine that? Yes. This happened. Joseph had to bring Mary and the baby Jesus out of danger and find refuge, to find a safe haven for them. The cruelty and the violence around threatened the life of the baby Jesus. Such violence came from those who were in power and those who were rich.
Herod was very threatened of the presence of the new-born King. He was in fact became very insecure that someone will take the throne, the power and his wealth from him. This revealed how King Herod was hungry for power that he became restless. Yet, this is not the first time Herod was like this. History tells us that Herod even murdered his own children so that no one will take what he enjoyed in his life. This insecurity in him had consumed him that he wanted to eliminate those whom he thought were threats to him.
Herod must have thought that he himself was a “god.” For this reason, he felt so entitled that he was most willing to murder innocent people to get what he wanted. In his desire to have power, he ordered the murder of innocent baby boys in his attempt to kill the Baby Jesus. Hundreds of children were murdered right in front of their mothers and fathers and their families. It was merciless. It was evil.
On this feast of the Holy Innocents, it reminds us that this kind of killings did not just stop there. This continued until today. Evil still persists until today. People were murdered in broad-daylight. Killed in front of people. Desecrated. This is evil. Evil persists when we allow it, when we allow our hearts to remain indifferent and violent.
image from thedailybeast.com
That is why, God has to find refuge. Yet, God runs towards us too, to find refuge in us. Egypt was a common place for Jewish refugees and people who seek safety. Egypt had become an important place in the life of Jesus as it had become a safe place for him. This tells us that even God became a refugee because of the people who rejected him.
Today, there are two invitation for us. First, let us be aware of our tendency to be violent, to be corrupt and to be insecure. Let not those darkness in us consume our hearts. They only bring us to death and misery. As the first Letter of John tells, let us come to the light. Let us come to God because he is our light and in him there is no darkness at all but peace and freedom. Thus, seek forgiveness and seek for reconciliation. This will allow us to live in freedom, to live in peace and to live in joy.
Second,Egypt was a safe haven for the Baby Jesus, for Joseph and Mary, allow ourselves to become the “Egypt for others.” Let our kindness and generosity, our gentleness and hospitality give comfort to those who are troubled today. Let people find care and attention, love and understanding in us, in our families and in our communities. Allow ourselves too, our families and communities to become a safe place for the weak and the vulnerable. Protect and nurture life. Defend life and stand against those who want to kill life. Though this will not be easy but demanding, make this as our expression of gratitude to the Lord who gave all to us.
In these ways, we may able to truly celebrate this Season of Christmas with joy and peace. Hinaut pa.
Our traumatic experiences, unexpected and painful events that have happened in our life could be our heavy reasons to retreat into sadness and desperation. Sometimes, we could not help it because what has occurred to us was just too much to bear, and too overwhelming. Such experience can be likened to darkness where every gleam of the light of joy and comfort was deprived from us.
However, there are many of us also who despite those painful, traumatic and heartbreaking experiences in their life, they persisted to hope again and too see something beyond the darkness that had befallen into their life.
For us to have a better understanding on this and a better realization on the wonder of seeing beyond darkness and hoping beyond pain and sadness, let us rediscover God’s invitation for us today and see how the three gifts of presence, of light and of life were slowly being unboxed in today’s readings.
In the Second Book of Samuel, the prophet proclaimed the gift of presence to be given to David. David who thought that he should build a house for God, was promised by the Lord to be given a house that will last forever. This is the covenant so dear to the people because God will be a father.
Besides, the Psalm also expressed a similar hope. Because of the suffering endured by the people of this time, they longed to that promise of God who shall show an everlasting kindness. What kept them hopeful was their confidence in God’s faithfulness because God is our Father. This confidence in God as Father, is the gift of the presence of God being unboxed slowly throughout the history of Israel.
In the Gospel of Luke, what has been proclaimed to us today is the Song of Zechariah. Remember, before he was able to sing this, Zechariah was muted by God. Because of his unbelief to God’s gift to him, Zechariah was silenced. He did not listen and believe in God’s revelation.
Remember again, Zechariah’s unbelieving response was a bitter reaction to God. Zechariah must have believed that God had forgotten him and abandoned him. The shame that he endured for being childless for many years must have brought him to hopelessness. He forgot that God was faithful. Yet, despite this reaction of Zechariah towards the gift of God, John was given to him and to his wife. The birth of John, was a gift of light. The dark shame and guilt of Zechariah was removed because of this gift of light. John was a light to him and to people who came to be baptized by John. John also led people to see the true light. John as the prophet of the Most High, himself unboxed the gift of light for people to see and be illuminated. He unboxed that gift through his preaching of the coming of the Messiah, the Lamb of God who was in their midst.
This is how Zechariah recalled the covenant of God and the fulfillment of the promise of a mighty Savior. In his song, he also recounted how his eyes have seen clearly that promise being unfolded through the birth of his son. John will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of sins. The song of Zechariah itself is the unboxing of the gift of life.
The Song of Zechariah proclaims to us the abundance of life coming into us now and that we too, each of us, is unboxing this gift of life.
With all of these, how do we unbox the gifts given to us by the Lord?
We unbox the gift of presence of God by becoming confident in God’s presence. Both the Second Book of Samuel and the Psalm tell us that God is our Father. Take confidence in this. It is because that God is a Father to us, God will always be for us. We may have not so nice experiences with our earthly fathers, but God as our Father, will never hurt and will never leave us.
We unbox the gift of light when we also accept and confront our own blindness and our own darkness. Like Zechariah, he was confronted by the Angel of his unbelief. Let us also confront ourselves and challenge ourselves not to succumb to what is dark and to what is evil. Only then, also that we will be able to confront the darkness and the evil around us when we are confident that we have unboxed the gift of light, who is Jesus.
We also unbox the gift of life when we learn to embrace the beauty and the wonder of every form of life. God is about to be born like us, and God chooses to be born because God is life and God is for life. When we learn to show respect to all life, cherish all life and protect all life, then we unbox this gift and be gifted with eternal life.
The gifts of presence, of light and life is Jesus himself. Remember that. Hinaut pa.
Who was the person who taught you to pray? Who was that important person in your life who brought you to the church and to develop your personal relationship with God? I am sure that we have our own share of stories and memories of those persons who were significant in the formation of our faith. They may be our grandparents or parents, siblings or relatives or others because of their friends. Others also only began going to the church and learned how to pray and became closer to God because they were following their girlfriend or boyfriend in the Church.
Well, I want you to remember that person and please, thank the person. If the person is sitting near you, say thank you. If the person is not around with you anymore, then, in remembrance of that person, say thank you also as you imagine the face of that person.
I want you now to listen a story of real struggle that happened very recently who despite the pain and overwhelming confusion, she is able to realize the gift of persons in her life during these trying times. Let us listen to Mildred Taño Tocao (Ate Neneng) short story.
The bitterness and the difficulty of losing your beloved in life, is truly painful to accept. My husband had been ill for many months yet, he kept his illness to himself. He never asked for help perhaps because he did not want to be troubled.
I was only able to bring him to the hospital when he had the difficulty in breathings. When I brought him to the hospital, I had many fears since I easily get scared. I am scared of seeing dead people. I am scared of patients who are gravely ill. However, at that time, I was able to overcome to those fears because I wanted my husband to be healed and to live.
Yet, when he was brought to the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), I was prevented to be with him. I went home but I isolated myself from my children and grandchildren since I was exposed to the hospital. I was very confused and very anxious. I was all alone in the room. I was paranoid and would easily get scared every time I would hear my phone ringing. I was scared that the hospital might give me some sad news. Yet, the time really came when I was informed that my husband died alone, away from us.
The pain in my heart was overwhelming. I lost my husband. I have never even seen him just for once before he was buried. What I can do was to cry. Moreover, because of the mandatory 14 days quarantine imposed on me, I could not embrace my two grandchildren. I can only hear their cried looking for me. I was grieving and deeply sorrowful.
However, despite all these, “God is gracious and fills us with gifts.”
“I am still thankful to you Lord for the gift of life and for the gift of presence of my husband, Tata. You have awakened my husband to praise and thank you. Although, he rarely went to Church, but my husband slowly came back to you and realized the importance of going to the Church. There were even times when it would be him waking me up early and reminding me to go to Church and pray. It is still painful to think that he is no longer with us. What I can do now is to remember him and cherish our memories with him especially as we are about to celebrate Christmas and New Year.”
Despite all these painful events in our life, I am really grateful to the Lord because God has given us many gifts. Our children and our grandchildren are the most wonderful gifts we have received. Now, they are the source my strength and of my inspiration in the midst of this painful event of losing my beloved husband.
Ate Neneng and the whole family had been a subject of discrimination and because of the surrounding fear during this pandemic, they too were deprived to see and bury their beloved dead. However, the painful experience of Ate Neneng and of the whole family leads us to this wonder to see beyond darkness and to hope beyond pain and sadness.
What helped Ate Neneng to see beyond are the very presence of those people who love her and whom she loves. Her children and grandchildren, as she shared, became the very source of comfort and strength to her in these very difficult times. In this way, God reveals His graciousness and gifts to us with those people who are near to us, particularly our family. This is what Ate Neneng also realized as she struggled to discover hope and find light in this heartbreaking point of her life.
To consciously remember and recognize the people in our life and in the story of our faith, we too are being reminded of God’s action within our history. God called messengers or heralds to lead us and gather us into the presence of God. With this, let us also discover how God worked in our history and reveal His graciousness to us through the Sacred Scriptures.
In the prophecy from the Book of Malachi, we have heard of God’s herald who shall lead and gather the people to see God. He is like a refiner’s fire who will teach and correct the wrong of the people. The herald leads the people to repentance to fully welcome the Lord. And the very life of this person is the message of God to make the people prepare themselves for God’s coming. This is God’s promise that is to be first fulfilled through the participation of humanity, through us.
The person of this herald is truly a gift because his presence means bringing us into preparation. This is how God’s graciousness is also revealed because what God desires is our salvation and our freedom. The role of the herald becomes our link with God.
The author of the Psalm expressed the desire to be taught by the Lord and to be led to the truth. This is the role of the herald in the first reading and the herald in the Gospel of Luke who teaches, leads and gathers the people to recognize God’s graciousness.
What is more interesting about the herald was how he was conceived in his mother’s womb. In the Gospel of Luke, which tells us of the birth of John, the herald of God was surrounded by a story of surprise and of God’s graciousness. The Lord continued the revelation of this plan through the old childless couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth.
Indeed, to the surprise of this old couple an angel announced that they will have a son. Elizabeth welcomed the message from God, but her husband, because it was too much to believe, could not accept God’s gift. That is why, Zechariah was silenced by God. He only recovered his voice when his son was born. It was when he gave the name John to his son that the Lord opened his mouth again because the Lord is gracious.
The name John literally means, God is Gracious. The birth of John the Baptist is a testimony of God’s graciousness not just to the old couple, Zechariah and Elizabeth but to the whole humanity. The couple is an image of the people who longed to be taught and to be led to God. As John was a gift to his parents, John also points to God’s graciousness who is about to come in its fullness. Zechariah also realized that his son is God’s message to him. With the birth of his son John, Zechariah was filled with God’s gift which made him to speak again because of so much joy and gratitude to the Lord.
Yes, Zechariah spoke and regained his voice because of so much joy in his heart, because of so much gratitude in his spirit. The birth of John is a divine manifestation that God is gracious and faithful despite our unbelief and doubts. God continues to reveal himself to us even though we may refuse to believe.
This was the role of John and that was to bring people again to believe that God has never abandoned us. God remembers and He is here with us. This made John a great and important prophet because he made people recognize God and brought them closer to God. He was a refiner’s fire because he challenged the people’s way of life and called them to get out from their comfort zones of power, influence, abuse, sin and corruption. Yet, because of this role of John, it caused John’s life. He was martyred, beheaded actually, because of this cause to make people recognize that God is gracious.
This is the invitation for us today – to be a herald of God. Each of us was led and taught by significant people in our life. Now, it is our time to be one, to become God’s herald today, to become like John the Baptist who will also lead others to God, who will point to others how God is so gracious to us.
How do we become a herald today?
You as parents, you are in the best position to lead your children to God. You are there to prepare the way of the Lord in the hearts of your children – not through indifference and irresponsibility but through your love and understanding, through your loving presence and affection.
Teachers, educators and persons who are in authority, you too are in the position to influence your students, mentees and subjects to discover God through your authority – not through dominance and control but through your loving care and gentleness.
As friends, co-workers, and classmates we too are in the position to let those people around us to realize that God is in us – not through manipulation and deceit but through our kindness and generosity. Through us, people around us may discover and be led closer to God. Hinaut pa.
How grateful am I today? Gratitude makes us recognize the many things that surround us in a manner of being appreciative and positive. Gratitude allows us to be embracing and accepting of the things and people around us. It is when we are grateful too that we become joyful persons because we see the goodness and uniqueness of others.
The joy that comes from being grateful leads us to be more aware of God’s tremendous generosity to us despite our weaknesses and sins. When we become joyful, we also become generous towards the people around us, no matter who they are, whether they are friends or strangers.
Such character in us that is being nurtured because of gratitude, calls us now on this Seventh Day of our Misa de Aguinaldo to be more conscious of God’s gift to us and to grow in gratitude. For us to recognize the gifts in us, let us see first how gifts of the Lord were also being revealed in today’s readings.
In the First Book of Samuel, we heard the story of Hannah. Hannah had been into humiliation and shame because of being infertile. She could not bear a son which gave her so much anguish. Being the second wife of Elkanah, Hannah was always humiliated by Peninnah, the first wife. Yet, through the prophet Eli, Hannah’s prayers were answered. She bore a son, Samuel.
Through the gift of Samuel to Hannah, she realized how faithful God is to her. Through this gift, she also realized the other gift she received, through her friendship with Prophet Eli. The presence of Eli to Hannah was a reminder that there was hope. That friendship, made Hannah to be comforted when she was humiliated. Eli was Hannah’s prayer warrior. This made Hannah to be ever grateful to God. Because of her gratitude to God’s blessing and saving her from humiliation, she dedicated her son to God. In fact, because of this offering, Hannah had been blessed also to have 5 more children after Samuel. Hannah’s story is a testament that when we become generous, God’s blesses us more.
The Responsorial Psalm, which was also taken from the same Book of Samuel, expressed the experiences of the people and particularly of Hannah in the first reading. God comes to rescue his people who were oppressed, humiliated and broken. The response, “My heart exults in the Lord my savior,” expressed that deep gratitude to God who is not indifferent to the suffering of the people. A heart that exults God is joyful and grateful. Thus, to praise and truly worship God is to have a heart filled with joy and gratitude.
To both, we are reminded of God who comes to bless us in order to save us, to liberate us and to empower us. This character of God has been the experience of Mary. Her song famously called as the Magnificat expressed also that deep gratitude to the Lord.
God is indeed great for he has done many great things to the lowly ones. This recalls and recognizes the action of God where the powerful, the arrogant and the corrupt are brought to shame while the lowly, the poor and the hungry are raised and satisfied. This song depicts how God favored and blessed those who call him God and those who remain faithful. Mary’s song is certainly a song of gratitude to God.
Everything that we have heard in the readings tell us that when a person grows to be grateful, the person also becomes more aware of the presence of God, the giver of blessings and gifts. This reminds us too that everything is a gift.
God calls us today to be more grateful of the gifts and blessings that we have received each day, no matter how small that would be. But if we have received so much, be more thankful and be more generous too. Remember, a grateful person is a person who goes forward, because when we are grateful we also become contented of the present, whatever there is. We also become reconciled with the past, whatever that was. And we become hopeful and positive of the future, whatever there will be.
In a concrete way, let us begin today in recognizing every gift we have received from God, not just our material things, but also the gift of persons of our friends and family, of faith and community. As we recognize them, let our hearts be filled with gratitude to the Lord and gratitude to people around us. Let that gratitude express the joy in us, to dispel our anxieties and fears, our guilt and shame, our indifference and sin. Hinaut pa.
A DOSE OF GOD TODAY 